Over the last several years, head-mounted displays have revolutionized the way people experience various kinds of digital media. For example, head-mounted displays may allow virtual-reality users to experience realistic, immersive virtual environments while playing video games, during flight simulation training, or even when interacting with co-workers around the globe. In addition to such virtual-reality applications, head-mounted displays may also enable users to augment reality and/or combine certain aspects of reality with those of the virtual world.
Despite incredible advances in such technology, traditional head-mounted displays may still have certain deficiencies that negatively impact the overall user experience. For example, some head-mounted displays may be unable to accurately compensate and/or account for physical movements made by the user. More specifically, these head-mounted displays may exhibit a certain amount of delay that causes the display to lag behind the user's actual physical movements. This delay is sometimes referred to as motion-to-photon latency. Beyond just being a nuisance to the user's overall experience, motion-to-photon latency may, in some cases, cause the user to become ill and/or nauseated.
Unfortunately, to ensure visual continuity from one image frame to the next, traditional head-mounted displays may be forced to limit their image processing by performing only low granularity, inefficient frame-by-frame operations. For examples, due to certain processing limitations, some head-mounted displays may be unable to perform intraframe or subframe line-by-line processing operations while also ensuring a steady stream of image frames for display. In other words, the practice of performing only low granularity frame-by-frame processing may help traditional head-mounted displays avoid more serious display problems (such as underflow and/or overflow), which could potentially lead to frame drops.
The instant disclosure, therefore, identifies and addresses a need for additional apparatuses, systems, and methods for achieving intraframe image processing in head-mounted displays.